What does “growing up” mean? It means, among other things, developing the ability to think critically. It means coming to understand that not everything that exists is right, necessary or permanent.
We are born into a political system which we take for granted. We start off by thinking it is perfectly natural and democratic. Then, with time, we come to see how unfair it is and how corrupt. We see the politicians’ broken promises, the lies which so smoothly roll over their tongues, how they manipulate the people’s trust and innocence.
Disappointed in politics, some people nevertheless wait for the Messiah politician. They believe that it is not the system of politics that is rotten but only the political personalities, that it is only a matter of the right person coming along on his white (or black) horse — or her horse and that then the mess will be cleaned up. Some people see the system’s corruption but believe it can be reformed, that it is possible to take the corruption out of a system that is driven by the corrupting power of money, that it is possible to take the trickery out of a system that depends on lies to survive. And some people just “turn off” from politics, thinking that if they leave politics alone, politics will leave them alone. But whether people like the political system or not, most everybody seems to agree that for good or for evil, it is the politicians who get things done, that they are the movers and shakers of history.
We will try to show here that politicians are not our legitimate representatives. And the reason we want to demonstrate this is that many people, even community activists and community leaders, labor leaders and labor militants, student activists believe that it is by appealing to politicians that progressive change will come about.
What do we mean by politicians not being our “legitimate” representatives? We mean that no matter how many times politicians may get elected, they express neither the will nor the interests of the vast majority of the people.
What do we mean when we say that politicians cannot be our instruments of change? We mean that it is not the politicians but the people who make history, that it is the people in struggle who are responsible for serious change, that whatever good legislation (or good court rulings) have taken place have been nothing more than official recognition of the struggles taking place in the streets.
How Today’s Politics Got Started
Let’s just take a brief look at how this system was first set up. Our Constitution, which after 200 years is still the basis for the way our government works, was not what the majority even of the free people wanted after the American Revolution. (We are not here even considering the wishes of the African slaves who made up one-third of the population. We are not even counting the indentured servants from Europe, who had no political rights. When the Constitution or the “Founding Fathers” spoke of “the people,” they weren’t even thinking about those groups.
The Constitution was put over on the people by a small group of “solid,” “substantial,” “respectable” lawyers, landowners, including slave holders, and businessmen who as much as they had hated British tyranny, feared the common people. The Constitution was based on the theory of “checks and balances.” And one of the things that had to be checked was the will of the people, the “passions” of the people. From the very beginning, then, our government was set up to prevent real democracy.
There was the office of the President, for example. It was modeled to be something like that of a king, an elected king. Today, we take it for granted that we should have a President. But how democratic is it that it takes two-thirds of Congress to override the wishes of one man? And the President has many other powers that go beyond anyone’s real control. Similar power is exercised on a smaller scale by Governors and Mayors.
It might surprise some people to know that the good people of Pennsylvania, fresh from their victory in the American Revolution, set up a government that had no Governor, for a Governor smacked too much of the same kind of rule that they had suffered from under the British.
Then we have judges who interpret laws and who sometimes strike them down, who either are not directly elected by the people or are elected for very long terms. The idea from the start was to remove them as much as possible from popular control.
Or take the Senate, another institution meant to be relatively free from popular pressure. The Senator’s term of office was set at six years so that they would not be as accountable to the people as those in the House of Representatives who faced election every two years. Moreover, for many years they were not directly elected by the people but rather by the State Legislatures. To a certain extent, the Senate was modeled after the British House of Lords, an aristocratic body. Today it is called the Millionaire’s Club. Need we say why?
In a democracy, just as we vote our politicians in office, we should be able to recall them when they violate our trust. In many cases there is no way that can be done. In other cases, where technically it can be done, the process is so complicated and so expensive that the supposed right to recall just remains on paper.
Of course it should not be forgotten that the Constitution made provisions for slavery, did not allow women the right to vote, nor could anyone who did not have substantial property. As a matter of fact, in the early days of the Republic only about 10 percent of the people actually participated in elections.
As a final touch, the capital was set up in a marshy out-of-the-way village, rather than in or near a city, again to make sure that the government was as far removed as possible from popular pressure.
How Politicians Become Politicians
But let us now pass to the present day. Why do we say politicians are not our legitimate representatives? Why don’t they have legitimacy? Let’s start with how someone gets to hold office in the first place. We are speaking of elected officials. Actually, most officials are not elected but are appointed. Like the job of Police Commissioner, appointed by the Mayor. If we don’t like the way the Police Commissioner is doing his job, there’s nothing we can do except wait until the next Mayoral election. Then there’s cases like that of the members of the Federal Reserve Board. The decisions they make have a tremendous impact on the economy of the nation, on the people’s jobs and income. And yet once appointed by the President and ratified by Congress, they are completely beyond the control of the people, of Congress, even of the President who appointed them. This, again, was designed to make sure that key decisions most important to the banks and corporations would be as far removed as possible from popular control.
Let us pass on to the elected officials. How is the decision made as to who shall run for office? Do the people decide? Do they nominate the candidates? Of course not. It is the candidates themselves who throw their hat into the ring. They nominate themselves. And why do they decide to run for office? To serve the people? That’s what they say, of course. But what their performance has proved a thousand times over is that the aim of politics for them is not to serve the people but to pursue a career, to make money, to enjoy the perks that go along with a political career, and hopefully, to go up the ladder of success. Politics pays well, far more than what workers earn, more than even what most of the middle class make, certainly as far as the higher political offices are concerned.
Of course, winning political office is not so easy. One needs money to run for office. One needs to have money of one’s own or to have connections with people who have money. Some people with neither money nor connections start at the bottom, help others get elected, and after a certain amount of faithful service to the party may win the support of the political machine to run for some minor office. Then, if all goes well, they will slowly move up the ladder.
But this road is a very long one and they usually do not get past the bottom rungs. But if one has money and/or connections — political connections, business connections, social or family connections — and again, connections mean access to money — then one can take shortcuts — aim high right from the start. If you’re a billionaire, you can begin at the top and run for President. Each year, it gets more expensive to buy political office. How important is money? Well, the political campaigns this year cost about two billion dollars! Very little of this money is raised from small contributors. Those who give to political campaigns are the rich, the corporations. As good businessmen, they want to invest in something that is safe and has a good rate of return. They do not generally engage in speculation. And in politics, they are guided by the same business principles. In return for their money, they expect that their interests will be taken care of. And indeed, they get their. money back many times over. They wind up, for example, paying practically no taxes. The Government can be counted upon to carry out policies on behalf of Big Business that hurt the worker, hurt the environment, hurt the consumer. Their contributions keep the flow of war contracts going, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Their contributions help ensure that those good laws which were the fruit of the people’s militant struggles in the past do not get seriously enforced.
To make sure they are not left out in the cold should they back a loser, many corporations contribute to both parties. While Big Business is usually, but not always, more generous to the Republican Party, it is not stingy with the Democrats. The fact is that both parties are absolutely dependent on big money, on corporate financing, on the contributions of the wealthy.
So where do the people come in? They are allowed to choose between two candidates whom the business interests are willing to bankroll. And the media, which itself is the tool of the corporations and the wealthy — in fact themselves are owned by wealthy individuals and corporations — the media make sure that the minor parties stay minor, dropping a curtain of silence around those who do not represent the Establishment, around those who truly champion the people’s interests. And when it is not possible to ignore someone or some movement that is challenging the Establishment, then the media make it their business to try to discredit them, give them a bad name.
There is one particularly interesting road to political office for someone who has no money and no connections. And that is to make noise on behalf of the people, to start off, say, as a community activist and organizer, an advocate for the poor, denouncing the Establishment politicians. Having gained a reputation in the community as a champion of the people’s interests, the community activist then “goes into politics,” decides to serve the people better “from inside the system.” Having won the people’s confidence, the community activist occasionally succeeds in winning office, even against the opposition of the political machine. But once in office, the ex-activist, now politician, begins making deals with his colleagues, deals which the people are told are necessary. One has to be practical. “Politics is the art of compromise.” One has to give a little in order to get. If one wants to get something passed, then one cannot antagonize one’s colleagues, certainly not the ones in one’s own party. One cannot be “extreme.” One small step at a time is all one can hope for. Yet along comes the Contract With America (Contract On America) and then we see how all the efforts of half a century go to ruin with lightning speed.
Trying To Make The System Work For The People
We have talked about how the present political system is inherently undemocratic, how there is really no accountability between the politicians and the people they are supposed to represent. What, then, is the solution?
Many people sincerely interested in social change, in a just society, will tell you that while the political system is “far from perfect,” is corrupted by money on behalf of the special interests, their solution to the problem is to engage in “pressure politics” that is, to try to exert the greatest possible pressure on politicians to influence their behavior. Such pressure usually involves lobbying — people are urged to join delegations to visit politicians or send them messages. It never seems to occur to those promoting “pressure politics” to ask themselves why is it necessary to pressure a politician to serve the people’s interests? If politicians have the interests of the people at heart, why don’t they automatically “do the right thing”? Well, we are told that powerful forces who are opposed to the people’s interests — the corporations, the banks, the landlords, the wealthy, that they put pressure on politicians, so it is necessary to put on counter-pressure to keep the politicians from caving in to the enemy. But what is that pressure which is put on by the enemy? The enemy threatens that they will stop financing the politician’s campaign or that they will finance the campaign of a rival. In other words, the threat to politicians is to their career. But if politicians in office or pursuing office desire above all else to be public servants, as they say, then it would seem that the politicians would give up office rather than violate their public trust. Yet the opposite is usually the case. The career is the main thing, and the politician will do whatever is necessary to hold on to and advance that career.
We have said that politicians are not accountable to the people. Yet it is argued they are accountable because the people have the power to vote them out of office. Therefore, it is said, if we can organize the people and we can demonstrate our power to the politicians, we can force them to do what we wish. A hundred years ago when the leading labor organization, the American Federation of Labor, was faced with the decision of whether to form or support an independent political party, it decided to stick with the two-party system, and it developed a strategy of “rewarding one’s friends and punishing one’s enemies,” that is, voting one’s friends in one or the other of the two parties into office while voting one’s enemies in one or the other of the two parties out of office. A hundred years later the two parties are more than ever the instruments of the giant corporations, while the labor movement has shrunk drastically and is incapable of wielding substantial influence on the political life of the country. It is clear that the policy of rewarding one’s enemies and punishing one’s friends did not work very well.
What’s the problem with that strategy? First of all, it doesn’t take into account that if someone you support betrays you, the alternative is usually worse. If the Democrats vote against the people’s interest as they generally do — then one can punish them only by voting for the Republicans — no real alternative. Further, the worst “punishment” one can inflict, not supporting someone for reelection — can usually be more than compensated for by the increased support that the candidate may receive from wealthy contributors. Moreover, party loyalty and serving the Establishment offers many rewards. Party leaders can offer choice committee positions which inturn generate heavy contributions from the special interests. The party can offer high-paying appointive jobs even if one loses an election. Corporations can offer high-paying jobs in their own organizations. In other words, to careerist politicians, there are many attractive options available to them to defy the people’s wishes, however great the threat of popular retribution at the polls may be.
All well and good, reply our reformers, but how else are we going to get the things we want? After all it is the politicians, the office holders, that have the power. They make the laws, they carry out the laws, they set. policies. What choice do we have except to try to ask them to do things on our behalf?
Who Really Makes History?
The history of this country is the history of the struggle for real democracy. Through the agitation in the streets, demonstrations and marches, through workers going out on strike and seriously affecting the city’s or the country’s economic life, through boycotts, civil disobedience, through defying the authorities, many going to prison for participation in the struggle for a better life, some executed by the state, many being shot down, through political movements that turned away from the established parties and set up new parties accountable to the people, in other words, through various kinds of mass struggle have come the hard-won democratic advances for which then the politicians take the credit.
The extension of the right to vote to include working people, women, African-Americans; the right to social protections like Social Security, Welfare, unemployment benefits, the establishment of the minimum wage, curbing the powers of the big corporations through anti-trust legislation and holding the corporations responsible for some of their misdeeds, all these advances have been won on the basis of furious struggles of the people against the politicians. The end of slavery was brought about only by civil war and the arming of hundreds of thousands of former slaves and freedmen. The whole series of progressive measures known as the New Deal came about as the result of the never before seen militancy of workers, a huge wave of strikes, including sit-down strikes, and militant actions by radical organizations, from huge demonstrations and public meetings to sitting in at welfare centers and putting back furniture of those evicted by their landlords. The winning of important, although only partial rights by African-Americans in the 1960s and 1970s came about through a militant mass movement involving thousands of demonstrations and marches, boycotts, sit-ins, and acts in defiance of the authorities. The war in Vietnam was brought to an end in large measure thanks to the tremendous number of militant actions on the streets and the campuses.
In all these movements, the lobbying of politicians of the two parties, directly appealing to them, voting for them or threatening not to vote for them, played very little role in the outcome. Did the politicians respond nevertheless? Absolutely! As a matter of fact, the more the people pursued their demands independent of the politicians and the more the people took matters into their own hands, the more the politicians responded, fearing that if they did not, the people would turn away from the two-party system, would become more radicalized, would increasingly see that the political structure was not serving the people but the fat cats, would increasingly turn to more militant struggle and more radical organizations. History shows beyond any doubt that the militant activity of the people and independent political action is infinitely more effective than the best organized lobbying effort.
What About The “Good” Politicians?
What are we to say about that small band of good folks who operate within the two-party system (mainly Democrats) and who seem to have the people’s interests at heart, who seem in most cases to vote the “right way”? While they appear to be doing a good job, they fall very short of what is needed. To begin with, the duty of elected representatives goes far beyond voting. It includes remaining in close contact with their communities, explaining the issues, doing real political education. It includes assisting in mobilizing the community, encouraging the community not to rely on their “representatives” in Congress or the State Legislature or the City Council. And it includes helping to build and strengthen community groups so that the people are in a stronger position to fight for their interests. But this is precisely what even the best of the politicians refuse to do. They see it as their advantage to cultivate a sense of dependence on them. The politicians fear strong, independent community organization because it weakens their political control.
The “progressive” politicians almost always place party loyalty ahead of everything else. Their careers depend upon it. For there are many ways in which they can be punished for violating party loyalty and many ways in which they can be rewarded for upholding party loyalty. So come election time, they can almost always be found endorsing the politicians in their party, especially at the top of the ticket, although those politicians have harmed the people. If they do not have much good to say of their party colleagues, they fall back on the worn-out excuse of the “lesser of the two evils.”
For years, The Republican Party has been moving steadily to the Right. The Democratic Party, starting a little to the Left of the Republican Party, has been moving steadily to the Right, as well. Thus, the “lesser of the two evils” each year becomes a greater evil. Why does the Democratic Party move steadily to the Right? Because the powers-that-be have decided the days of reform are over, that it’s time to strike with an iron fist. And the Democrats know that as long as they stand a half an inch to the Left of the Republican Party, then people will have no choice but to vote for them. Here is the secret of the two-party system. The Democrats always make sure they are just different enough to be seen as the lesser of the two evils. The role of the Democrats in the system is to prevent the formation of a party expressing the real interests of people of color, of poor people, of the working people generally.
Strange as it may seem, it is the “progressive” politicians who often do the most damage to the interests of the people. For while they may generally vote in a progressive manner, they will not go so far as to “rock the boat,” that is, expose the phony nature of the political process, because to do so would involve serious risks to their career that they are unwilling to take. The main harm that they cause is that they, more than all others, help promote illusions in the political system among those most prepared to break with it, trying to convince people that it’s only a matter of getting some more people like themselves elected. They promote the illusion that it is possible to take over the party machinery, that they need only win more convention seats or win over more party clubs, hiding the fact that it is money which runs the party machinery, money which helps determine party delegates, but in any case that money rules no matter what party delegates may decide. The Christian Right, as an example on the other side, made a tremendous organizing effort as a result of which they won a majority of the Republican Party convention delegates. These delegates then voted for a platform which expressed the point of view of the Christian Right. What happened with that platform? Dole and the top Republican politicians, backed by Big Money, simply ignored it. It was “just a piece of paper” which Dole and Kemp said was not binding on them. The Christian Right might have had the vote and the delegates, but it was Big Money which at the end of the day called the tune.
The “progressive” politicians do not talk about the existence of the “permanent government,” which is the real ruler of this country, whichever party is in power, a powerful network of entrenched interests which sees to it that both political parties do their bidding in the essentials, which sees to it that their men are appointed to the key positions on every level of government, whichever party wins the election. The “progressive” politicians do not tell the people that while politicians seem to be setting policy and the direction of the country, it is the banks, the transnational corporations, the real estate moguls, the big commercial interests, which make the real decisions and who pass their thinking and their instructions down to the politicians in private meetings, about which the public never hears.
It is the “progressive” politicians who are among those who raise the loudest howls at the notion of independent politics, although some profess to be for it in theory, that is, until the time comes to move from theory to practice.
The Politicians and Community Activity
Almost always, when grassroots, labor and community organizers plan an activity, they don’t think it can be a success unless some politicians are invited to participate. To the organizers of the event, the participation of politicians puts an official stamp of respectability on it, lends it more credibility, more seriousness. But the truth is that it is always legitimate when people come together on behalf of their interests. It is the politician who is not legitimate. So having a politician participate in an event does not legitimize the event but falsely legitimizes the politician.
At bottom, this craving for the blessings and approval of politicians is evidence of submissive thinking. It foolishly exalts politicians as far as both their integrity and their power. And what do these people get for catering to the politicians? They may get a bone thrown at them, a little government money for this or that activity, a job in a government program or non-governmental organization. But such bones exact a heavy price in return, and that price is the demand for continued loyalty to a political system that oppresses the community and keeps the community in a state of powerlessness. For what history has shown is that it is not this or that bureaucrat or clerk with a law degree who wields ultimate power. It is the masses of the people who, when they shake themselves from their slumber, are able to move mountains without the help of and in spite of the exertions of the politicians.
Politicians Versus Political Leaders
What we have said here about politicians does not mean that we do not believe in government or that we do not believe in political leadership, that we are anarchists. The people do need leaders, leaders who are willing to submit themselves to the discipline of the people’s will, leaders who arenot looking to make a lucrative career out of political activity but who believe in modest living, in harmony with their role as representative of the interests of a people struggling for physical survival, leaders who are not afraid to tell the whole truth, leaders who are prepared to fight the powerful interests which control the political and economic life of the country, leaders who are prepared boldly to confront not only those forces but all those — as popular as they may be at any given moment who run interference for the powers-that-be, who pretend to be the friends of the poor and the working people but who are, in fact, buffers that protect the people’s enemies and deflect the people from achieving their liberation. Honest and courageous political leaders deserve respect. But such leaders, even when they eventually hold office, will never be politicians!
